CYA

The book's opening anecdote tells of an unnamed CIA briefer who flew to Bush's Texas ranch during the scary summer of 2001, amid a flurry of reports of a pending al-Qaeda attack, to call the president's attention personally to the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, memo titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US." Bush reportedly heard the briefer out and replied: "All right. You've covered your ass, now."

-- From "The Shadow War, In a Surprising New Light," a review of Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine by Barton Gellman, in the Washington Post

We are not (yet) privileged to know what happened immediately after this demonstration of bovine stupidity and bullying churlishness toward the hired help -- so utterly in keeping with what we already know of Bush's lifelong sense of patrician entitlement and contempt (born of incapacity) for hard mental labor. The mind's eye can't help but conjure up that smirk, that shoulder-shaking little chortle, the abruptly turned back, the quick return to the game of pool that the hapless briefer had so rudely interrupted with his importuning that the President of the United States, deep in the cloudy comfort of his Crawford vacation, actually move himself to fulfill the duties he had been elected appointed to perform.

It's also not particularly difficult to imagine a CIA briefer leaving the scene of his humiliation, vowing to bring down the revoltingly stupid little bully-boy by whatever means presented themselves. Ron Suskind has provided an admirable opportunity.

Bush's pissy insult stands like the pile of puppy-shit on the living-room carpet in which History will rub his stubby little nose for a thousand thousand years. In the fullness of time, "All right. You've covered your ass, now," will be branded on his forehead, and on the forehead of every vizier, camp follower and sycophant that hitched a wagon to his blank, moribund, lightless star.